If you can believe it, the sub-zero temperatures could yield positive results.

The deep freeze could help slow down the emerald ash borer insect as it tries to invade the state’s ash trees. The invasive emerald ash borer is present across the state. It eventually kills ash trees.

Department of Natural Resources, state entomologist Philip Marshall says the pests stand a lesser chance of survival in prolonged spells of sub-zero temperatures.

“It won’t be the end of the emerald ash borer. It’ll be the end of a FEW emerald ash borer,” he says.

Temperatures would need to be somewhere around 25 to 30 degrees below zero over three or more days to really have a big impact on the borer.

But National Weather Service hydrologist Al Shipe says those kind of temperatures would shatter records.

“We’ve never had that kind of weather,” he says. “The longest cold spell that we’ve had here is December of ’89 when the temperature was 66 hours of zero or below.”

Shipe says the lowest reported temperatures experienced in Indiana this month were in Zionsville where it hit negative 20, but that only lasted for a few hours.

Read Next

What is RSS? RSS makes it possible to subscribe to a website's updates instead of visiting it by delivering new posts to your RSS reader automatically. Choose to receive some or all of the updates from Indiana Public Media News:

What is RSS? RSS makes it possible to subscribe to a website's updates instead of visiting it by delivering new posts to your RSS reader automatically. Choose to receive some or all of the updates from Indiana Public Media News: